


just the beating of hearts, like two drums in the grey

by philindas



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:58:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2006670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philindas/pseuds/philindas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world falls apart on a Tuesday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just the beating of hearts, like two drums in the grey

**Author's Note:**

> A modern!au based on the tumblr prompt 'Ned/Cat running from the police'. Title from 'Run' by Daughter.

The world falls apart on a Tuesday.

A month later, Catelyn and Ned Stark were on the run.

It’s hard, the first few weeks; they can’t use phones or stay in one place for too long, they couldn’t use their credit cards and had to conserve their cash. They sleep in run-down motels in tiny towns, eat in diners barely bigger than their kitchen had been in Winterfell, and they learn to hot wire cars pretty quickly.

Catelyn doesn’t quite know when a hot shower became a luxury, but when the motel they check into (using fake names and cash) has actual, hot running water and a bed without mystery stains, she almost bursts into tears right there. Ned leaves her to shower while he gets them food; there’s a pang in her chest when the door shuts, and she squeezes her eyes shut.

Ever since they’d left Winterfell, there had been a kind of a distance between them. Things had never been like this between them, in the entirety of their two and a half decades together- not when they were dating, or in all their years of marriage. But it was different now- the world was different, they were different, _everything_ was different.

It was hard to think that six months ago, they’d been sitting in the living room of the Stark family home, arguing over what board game to play. Arya had insisted on Risk, Sansa on Monopoly, and Robb- _Robb_. The thought of her eldest son sent a stabbing pain through her chest, white hot even all these months later. She can still see his face as he fell to the ground, can still feel Ned’s hand over her mouth to keep her quiet so Roose Bolton couldn’t hear her, can still feel the tears on her cheeks as she’d watched her son die.

She shoves the thoughts away and gets into the shower, the hot water practically scalding her skin, but it feels so good she doesn’t turn the temperature down. She cleans her long hair completely for the first time in what feels like months- she uses the entire tiny bottle of conditioner provided by the hotel, but she knows Ned won’t care.

It takes a lot to rile Ned up- it always has, but since they’d been on the run, it was as though he was a stone. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a true smile from her husband, and the thought made her chest ache even further as she shut the water off, grabbing one of the threadbare towels from the rack above the toilet and beginning the process of drying her hair.

When she exits the bathroom, she finds Ned stretched out on the bed, asleep, and a pizza box on the small table. She smiles sadly; the only time he ever looks peaceful anymore is when he’s asleep, and he rarely goes to bed before her, preferring to plan their next move before resting. He’s exhausted, she knows- they’d nearly been caught just outside of King’s Landing, and they’d spent the last two weeks making up for it. The only reason they’d made the detour towards the new capitol city was because there’d been reliable information that Sansa was in the city, glorified hostage of Cersei Lannister.

But they hadn’t even been able to enter the city; just south, they’d seen their pictures on one of the nightly news shows, and knew they wouldn’t even be able to get close. So, with heavy hearts, they’d had to flee, letting go of the chance to rescue their eldest daughter- though what kind of existence could they even give her? Constantly on the run, afraid for their lives?

Even as she thinks it, though, she knows it wouldn’t matter. Having their child with them would be the only thing that mattered. Catelyn’s arms ached to hold her four remaining children again; they ached for the ghost of Robb, for the ghost of her father, whom she’d learned had died a few weeks earlier. She ached for her family. She ached for the past.

She changed into one of Ned’s shirts and a pair of sweats, ate a slice of pizza and put the rest in the fridge, and then crawled onto the bed. She hesitated for a moment, but curled herself into Ned, relief filling her when he shifted to accommodate her, arms wrapping around her as she tucked herself under his chin.

“I love you so much,” she whispered softly into the fabric of her shirt, aware that he was asleep and unable to hear her.

It seemed it was the only time she was able to say the words anymore.

* * *

Catelyn almost gets them arrested in White Harbor.

“You support this brutal, unnecessary war?”

“I support the war because my son is fighting for what he thinks is right,” the woman she’s arguing with outside the gas station bathroom fires back, and Catelyn feels the breath leave her body.

“My son is dead,” Catelyn replies quietly, gaze on her fingers- they were clenched together so tightly, the skin was white over her knuckles. “I have no idea if my other children are still safe. I have nothing but my husband left- and I can barely look at him because I know he must hate me for pushing him away. I’ve been a mother for the past twenty one years- it is the one thing I always knew I was good at, even when I doubted myself in everything else. And now my child is dead. If I discover the rest of them are dead as well, does that mean I’m still a mother? What do you call a mother with no children? A child without parents is an orphan, if you lose a spouse, you’re a widow or a widower. But what are you without a child, other than childless?”

She wipes at her eyes, barely aware of the tears spilling down her cheeks. The woman across from her doesn’t speak, though her eyes are wide and her face has gone pale.

“This war is not a good thing. This war is not helping anyone. It is killing children and ripping families apart and ruining lives. No one will win this war, not in the end. No one will be untouched, the Lannisters included. So I don’t agree with this war. I will never agree with this war,” Catelyn finishes, her voice soft and breaking as she looks back at her fingers, clutched together, spinning her wedding ring around her finger. “Not when children are dying and my family is broken.”

Catelyn turns, smoothing out her jeans before walking away without a word, finding Ned waiting outside. They walked to the car without a word; Catelyn rested her head against the window and closed her eyes, sick of the sight of road flashing behind them.

* * *

“I don’t hate you.”

She looks up at the words and frowns. “What are you talking about?”

The motel they’re staying at is slightly more upscale- there’s breakfast in the morning and the mattress doesn’t squeak when she sits on it, and there’s even twin sinks in the bathroom. There was even a small kitchen, so they’d risked a grocery store and gotten real food for the first time in weeks. Three grilled cheese sandwiches each later, Ned was doing the dishes while Catelyn flicked through the television channels, avoiding the news at all costs.

Ned’s words were quiet, but firm. He dries his hands on a paper towel before sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at her with those serious gray eyes she loved so much.

“I don’t hate you, Cat. I could never hate you,” he repeated. Catelyn’s frown deepened as she shifted to her knees, tilting her head as she looked at her husband. “You told that woman that you thought I must hate you for pushing me away when Robb….when we lost our son.”

“Ned that was weeks ago,” Catelyn replied softly, sharing the grief that had risen in his face at their son’s name on his lips.

“I’m not very good with words,” Ned replies with a shrug, lips curved ever so slightly upwards, in the first thing resembling a smile she’d seen in months. “And you deserve words, my love.”

“How can you not, though?” Cat asked quietly after a moment of silence, her blue eyes shimmering in the low lighting of the room. “I pushed you away when we needed each other the most.”

“It hurt. We were hurting. We lost our son, Cat,” Ned replied, voice cracking on the words. He swallowed, composing himself before reaching for her hand, enveloping it in his own. “And then we had to run, with no knowledge of where Sansa or Arya or Bran or Rickon were. This shouldn’t be our lives. If I’d only bent the knee to King Jof-“

“Don’t even think of finishing that sentence, Eddard Stark,” Catelyn cut him off, reaching the hand not in his up to cup his cheek, thumb dragging through the beard that had developed there. “This is not your fault, not any of it. You did not kill Robb, Ned. The Lannisters and Roose Bolton did. And they will pay for that, somehow.”

“I can’t lose you too, Cat,” Ned replied softly, his hand cupping her elbow as he looked at her, dark eyes wide and raw. “You’re all I have left, and you’re the most important thing in the world to me. I love you.”

Catelyn’s mouth is on his instantly, the words still fresh on his tongue when she presses against him, hands in his hair and warm, soft weight in his lap. It’s the most they’ve touched in months and they break apart, panting; Catelyn pressed her forehead to his, eyes shut tightly as she clutched him to her.

“I love you too. More than anything. I always will.”

The world they knew may be collapsing around them, but they’d have each other, no matter how it ended.


End file.
